Mukasey Should Be Rejected

It looks like Bush's nominee to replace Alberto Gonzales will be approved by the Senate -- but he shouldn't be. The nominee is Michael Mukasey, and his answers to Senate questions regarding the use of torture are very troubling.

Mukasey said that the use of torture was not legal. That might sound good until you realize that Bush said the same thing. He said it at the same time he told Gonzales to write the famous "secret memo" authorizing the use of various forms of torture. It is not enough to be opposed to a general concept of torture.

For instance, if you don't think attaching wires to a person's genitals and turning on the electricity is torture, then you can do it while saying you are opposed to torture. The real test comes in just what a person defines as torture. Bush has failed that test, as did Gonzales. Now it looks like Mukasey has failed that test also.

When the senators tried to ask Mukasey about specific techniques of torture, he would not answer their questions. How hard is it to decide if "waterboarding" is torture? It would seem obvious to any decent person that it is. But Mukasey would not answer that question.

Does that mean he might agree with the president that waterboarding is not torture? Does it mean he might actually authorize its use as Gonzales did? Mukasey's refusal to answer tends to show that he thinks torture is a gray area, with some things prohibited and some things allowed.

We cannot afford to have another Gonzales. Our next Attorney General must be a man who opposes all forms of torture. He must believe there are no gray areas when torture is involved -- it is all wrong.

If Mukasey doesn't know that waterboarding is torture, he should not be our next Attorney General.